Introduce Romi Konkani at primary level to resolve MoI issue: Wagh

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Vishnu Wagh has come out with a new theory. According to him, the Church-run primary schools shifted from Konkani to English because it was Devnagari Konkani.

While speaking on the general discussion on Goa budget in the Assembly today, Wagh thus demanded that Konkani in Romi script be introduced at primary level.

“This step would bring the Christian community back to Konkani medium and the controversy over the medium of instruction would also be resolved”, said the St Andre MLA.

He also alleged that a conspiracy is being hatched to keep the Christian community away from Konkani by making compulsion of Devnagari script.

According to him, all Christian rituals, writings and even Tiatr take place in Romi script while their children were forced to study Konkani in Devnagari script for 20 years.

In 1991, the Progressive Democratic Front government had decided not to give grants to English medium schools, due to which the Church-run Diocesan Board of Education had switched its medium from English to Konkani.

According to Wagh, the DSE shifted back to English medium in 2011 since the Christians were not comfortable with the Devnagari script.

“If the government introduces Konkani in Romi script in education, the Christians would feel the comfort of Romi script which is also used to write English”, he felt.

Wagh made these statements based on a presumption that majority students studying in DSE schools are Christians.

However, as per the Assembly reply to Vijai Sardesai dated 24th July 2012, 48% students (14,500) studying in 130 DSE schools are Hindus and only 39% (12,000) are Christians. The rest belong to other religions.

The statistics also states that 77 schools among these have majority students belonging to the Hindu community. Only 52 schools have majority of Christians.

Hindu students are in majority even in 11 schools of total 30 schools in Salcete taluka.

In Bardez, Tiswadi and Mormugao talukas, 50 DSE schools have majority Hindu students while only 9 schools have Christian majority.